Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Devina
by RobertCanary
Summary: Kira brings a broken teenage girl to Deep Space Nine in order to give her hope for a brighter future; but is there too much of the past getting in the way?
1. Chapter 1

**STAR TREK**

**DEEP SPACE NINE**

"**Devina"**

_(This story takes place during the early part of the first season of DEEP SPACE NINE.)_

Commander Sisko stared out the window of his office and watched as a Federation science vessel completed mooring operations.

"Stations Log," Sisko said out loud, "the science vessel S'tav has just arrived and, if all goes as planned, the scientist aboard her will begin their study of the wormhole, and more specifically, the effects warp fields could have upon the amazing phenomena that has reshaped this part of the quadrant."

Sisko reached down, and picked up the cup of coffee he had on his desk, took a sip, and continued.

"The tests will try to establish what would happen if an approaching vessel tried to enter the wormhole at warp speed; if at all possible. A Bajoran scientist will oversee all tests, due to the importance of the wormhole on Bajoran customs. Lt. Commander Dax as Chief Miles…"

At that moment, Dax and Obrien were at the door to Sisko's door, and so he waved them in.

"Sorry to interrupt you Benjamin," Dax said to her longtime friend, "but I wanted you to know that the chief and I should be finished making adjustments to the probe in about eight hours."

Sisko nodded in acknowledgement.

"And you're positive that it poses no danger to the wormhole," Sisko, with his deep voice, said to them both.

Dax looked over at Obrien and nodded her head for him to take over.

"Sir," Obrien began to say, "The probe's warp drive will be in constant control by either me, Dax or Kira."

"And," Dax continued with, "it will never enter the wormhole. Our only objective is to see if there is a subspace resonance field which we cannot detect, but that the wormhole can, that would cause it to open in the event a warp powered vessel approached it."

"The science team that just arrived will confirm our readings," Obrien said. "There should be no problems sir."

Sisko chuckled.

"Captain Edward John Smith said the same," Sisko said dismissively.

Dax's face denoted confusion.

"Who is Captain Edward John Smith?" Dax asked.

But Sisko didn't answer; Obrien did.

"He was the captain of the Titanic," Obrien told her. "An ancient Earth ocean-liner which was supposedly unsinkable," Obrien told her.

Dax frowned.

"Let me guess," Dax said to Obrien, and then she shifted her glance to Sisko, "the Titanic sunk."

Sisko nodded his head.

"Exactly," Sisko said. "And if anything goes wrong with your tests, no one will remember the scientists on the S'tav, or you two for that matter," Sisko said to Obrien and Dax. "They will only remember the captain, meaning me...old man."

Dax could hear the worry in Sisko's voice.

"Benjamin," Dax said to her friend, "we don't have to do these tests."

Sisko reached down and picked the baseball from its stand on his desk.

"Thank you for your worry," Sisko said, "but someday, someone might try to enter the wormhole at warp speed," he made a quick throwing motion with the ball to make his point, "Be it a Ferengi marauder, or even a cloaked Romulan Warbird. We have no idea what could happen to the wormhold aliens, or even DS9, should the wormhole be affected in a negative way. It's best to find out now."

Obrien nodded his head.

"Sir, for all we know," Obrien said, "a ship approaching at warp speed could have no effect at all."

"Agreed," Sisko said to Obrien, "but let's find out for sure."

Dax and Obrien nodded in agreement, and then they left Sisko's office. Sisko continued with his log. And all though he didn't say anything about, he still had a nagging feeling deep inside; he only hoped he was wrong.

Continued….


	2. Chapter 2

**STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE**

**"DEVINA"**

**Chapter 2**

* * *

**Bajor; Musilla Province**

A Transporter beam shimmered into view, and instantly Major Kira Nerys appeared. Kira, glad to be back on her home world of Bajor, closed her eyes and took in a deep breath. She opened her eyes and was greeted with a beautiful view of the mountains in the near distance, crouched beneath a bright blue sky, with the sounds of birds nearby.

"What am I doing," Kira said to herself; almost as if she were embarrassed to be taking in the aesthetics of the world around her. "I'm starting to lose my edge, hanging around all those Star Fleet types, "she added.

She turned around and saw the complex she had come to visit. It was the Shajat Orphanage. With the Cardassian occupation of Bajor still a recent memory, so were its effects. Many children had been left orphaned, and the need for places like Shajat was an uncomfortable reminder of Bajor's recent past. And while Major Kira didn't really care for the Federation, yet, she did have to admit that they were trying to help as best they could.

Recently a Bajoran Choir, comprised of children, had performed on DS9. It was a return visit due to the unfortunate events that surrounded their first visit (_DS9:"Blood Island")._ The second performance garnered a very nice sum of contributions from those who had come to see the performers at the space station situated near the Wormhole. The flood of donations was used to buy clothes and other needed items for the various orphanages; Shajat being one of them. Kira had come to Shajat to see first had the good that was being done. Another reason she came to Shajat was to visit and old friend, a Bajoran woman named Jantha Myran.

Jantha was five years older than Kira. They had met at one of refugee camps whey then were younger, and they became good friends. Kira looked up to Jantha as if she was an older sister, and there was good read. For as it was, there were many times when the boys at the camp would harass Kira with their taunting, but Jantha would make them regret by bloodying their noses with her first. Jantha showed Kira that, in the world of refugee camps, young girls had to toughen up to survive. Much of Kira's gruff nature came from those early years, and Kira owed her aggressive nature, good or bad, to people like Jantha who helped shape her into the woman she now was.

As Kira headed for the building, the door opened, and out stepped Jantha; and Kira smiled. The two women came together and hugged. Jantha stepped back and took a long look at Kira.

"Kira," Jantha said, "look how you turned out. I bet you have to beat the men back with a stick!"

They both laughed.

"Actually," Kira replied, "I'm too busy at my job for anything else." Kira paused, and then she continued. "I'm so glad to see you. I'm sorry it has taken this long to come and visit."

Jantha shook her head.

"I don't want to hear it," Jantha said with a warm smile, "I can only imagine how busy you are and I am so happy you were even able to visit us. Please," Jantha said motioning toward the humble structure, "please come. I know I've been begging for you to visit for nearly the past few months, but look; now here you are, and here we are, catching up on the past; it is so good to see you Nerys."

The two old friends made their way inside of the Jantha Orphanage. As they spoke about old times, Kira could see that the young women, and girls, who lived at the orphanage, were all well mannered and seemed to be happy. Jantha did her best to explain to Kira how the orphanage operated, on a general front, taking Kira to the mess hall and the laundry facilities. There was even a mechanical maintenance center where the young girls were trained how to work on computers and/or other devices so they could hopefully apply their knowledge into a profession of some sort.

Eventually the two old friends were walking along a path in the park area inside the orphanage. There were trees and paths, and benches to sit on so as to take it all in. Kira saw several of the girls reading, or just being together; a much better place to grow up than the places Kira had to endure. As they came around a bend in the path, Jantha motioned for Kira to sit on one of the benches with her.

"I hope the donations from the choir performance can help," Kira said to Jantha.

Jantha nodded her head.

"Oh, they will," Jantha assured Kira. "For the most part, these young girls will become productive and that's really all we can ask for."

"For the most part," Kira repeated back to Jantha, "what does that mean?"

Jantha shifted her glance, which Kira followed, to a girl who was all by herself. The young girl, no more than 15 years old, and who had a defiant look to her.

"What happened to her?" Kira asked.

Jantha took on a somber tone.

"Her name is Devina," Jantha explained, "and I would be lying to you Nerys if I said our sitting here at this moment was coincidence."

"What does that mean?" Kira came back with.

Jantha looked at the girl, and then back to Kira.

"To answer your first question, as to what happened to her," Jantha began to say, "When she was just ten years old, her parents were executed and the Cardassians that killed them took Devina to a sex camp where she was beaten and violated, everyday, for five years. When we found her, she acted more like a caged animal than person. Now, over the past year or so, she has been adopted three times. Each time she was brought back due to her in ability to conform to a family life. She…"

Kira raised her hand slightly to cut in.

"Jantha," Kira said, "I know where this leading; and I'm sorry, I just can't," Kira said, as she looked over at the girl, Devina, who was sitting beneath a tree playing with a spring-ball racket, looking distant. "I don't have the time to spend with her, and even if I did, I'm not sure how good I could be. You know that my child life wasn't much better than hers. If I were her age, and was at one of the orphanages, I would probably be the same way she is."

Jantha reached out and put a hand on Kira's shoulder.

"She already has a new set of parents," Jantha said, with a calming tone. "They are due to arrive in two weeks. But if she lasts with them as long as she did with the last family, she will be turned away in three months. But by that time, she will be overage and we will have no choice but to deny her entry back into Shajat. After that, she will no doubt end up back on the street and," Jantha said with a softer voice, "who knows what she will be forced to do to survive."

Kira frowned.

"It's not that I don't care," Kira said, "I just…" she looked at the girl.

"I'm just asking for a week, maybe two," Jantha said to Kira. "Let her see that someone like her, someone like you, can have a future if they apply themselves. Nerys, I've read your letters to me and how you can't stand working with the Federation but that you will have to learn to adapt because that is the future. Learning to live with a family, for moral and material support, is her future."

A tear came down from Kira's eyes. She reached up with her finger to dry them, but Jantha's finger arrived first. Kira chuckled.

"I've lost a lot of my edge, thanks to working around Star Fleet officers," Kira said, "you must be embarrassed of me."

"No; not at all. You're like the little sister I never had," Jantha said to her friend, "I'm proud of you. You and I survived through some very hard times," she looked over at Devina, "but she did too. We had each other, back in those days, she has no one."

Kira looked at Devina, and then back at Jantha.

"I don't even know if I can help her," Kira said, softly.

Jantha smiled at Kira.

"She's not looking for help," Jantha said, "what she needs is a friend. After that, anything is possible."

Kira nodded her head.

Continued…


	3. Chapter 3

**Deep Space Nine; Devina**

**Wish Hope Pray Die**

The OPS command center on DS9 was jam packed with scientists from Bajor and the Federation. Sisko looked out from the window of his office, and was proud of the fact that Jadzia Dax was at the center of the conversation as the other scientists gathered around her at her post. She even shot him a look, and Sisko gave her an enthusiastic thumbs-up.

Dax smiled at Sisko and then she spoke to the gathered throng of scientists.

"As you can see," she told them, as she motioned to the large oval shaped main viewing screen, and at the charts displayed upon it, "the effect of an approaching warp field seems to increase the Z and F wave length variables coming from the Wormhole.

T'ravok, an older Vulcan female scientist nodded in agreement. T'ravok was considered a leading expert in wormhole science.

"Yes, you are quite right," T'ravok said to Dax. "However I must state the obvious that these variables are not consistent to the angular intersections of the tachyon envelope or the inversion of the keyhole magnetic fluctuations."

Dax nodded her head. Leave it to the Vulcan to burst her bubble; but Dax wasn't giving up so easily. But before Dax could respond, the senior Bajoran scientist, Litha Jorath, a mid-aged Bajoran male, and who was also the representative of the provisional Bajoran government, did so instead.

"Actually," Litha said, with a smile, "I think these variables are sufficient to warrant further study."

T'ravok nodded her head in agreement.

"Of course," T'ravok said, in her usual stoic manner, "that would be logical."

Litha smiled at Dax.

"Lt. Commander Dax," he then said to Dax, "I hope you will oversee this study. I am quite impressed with your thoroughness."

The other gathered scientist, including T'ravok, nodded their heads in agreement. It was a small feather in her cap, to be sure, but Dax was proud that she could hold her own with some of the brightest minds.

Sisko, through the intercom channel he had left opened, smiled at the turn of events as well. With the discovery of the wormhole echoing throughout the Federation, DS9 was becoming a magnet of research. And knowing that one of his officers was leading that research made Sisko all that more proud of her, and in general, of his most impressive crew.

* * *

**Inside Kira's quarters…**

"Well," Kira said to the teenaged young woman who would be staying with her for the next week, "I know this isn't a palace, but," Kira said with a smile, "for me this is home."

They had just arrived from Bajor, and hadn't spoken much the whole way. The look on Devina's face said it all; she wasn't impressed with Kira's quarters at all.

"I was told you were one of the Resistance's greatest fighters, " Devina said to Kira, "and that you played an important part in driving the Cardassians away and yet; the Federation comes here and gives you something that is rightfully yours?"

Kira found it odd responding to Devina's line of question, since, when Kira first got the assignment to DS9, she had similar thoughts.

"I have only known the Federation crewmembers of Deep Space Nine for a short while," Kira said. "From what I can tell, they seem honorable. And besides," Kira said, motioning to the room around them, "you grew up in those camps just as I did. And yet, even living in those horrible conditions at times; if you haven't figured out that the size of someone's home or quarter's does not make them who they are then I'm sorry for you."

For a slight second, as Kira looked at Devina, she saw the anger in the young woman's eyes ease just a bit. Devina turned around and then walked over to the small shrine in the one of the corners of the room; and then she chuckled.

"Why do you laugh," Kira asked to Devina's back.

Devina turned around and looked at Kira.

"Yes," Devina said, with a slight accusatory tone to her voice, "I did live in those camps. And then, when I had just turned ten years old, I was taken to the sex camps for the Cardassian soldiers," she thought for a moment, and then continued. "I wen t into those camps believing I would be saved; I held on to my faith in the Prophets as long as I could," Devina said softly. "The Cardassian guards allowed me, and the other Bajoran sex slaves, men-women-girls-boys, to pray. They even allowed us to have a shrines; not unlike this one," she pointed at Kira's shrine. "They did so because they knew we were fools for believing."

Kira could see the pain and embarrassment, the sheer humility in Devina's face as a tear came down.

"I'm so sorry," Kira said, "I wish…"

Devina cut Kira off with her anger fueled words.

"That's just it!" Devina yelled. "You wish…you hope…you pray…you do all of that. And then, in the middle of the night, you are dragged out of your cell like an animal, sometimes pulled by your hair along the cement ground, and still you wish…you hope…you pray. And then," she looked down at the ground, "when they do things to your body that you cannot understand, you just," she searched for words, "wish…hope… and pray to die, or that if it was someone else they were doing it to, you hoped they would die."

Kira attempted to hug Devina, and then could only watch as the bitter young woman ran into the other room. It was all Kira could do but listen to Devina cry in the other room.

But Kira knew of the pain that tormented Devina's soul, because; Kira had more than once wished-hoped-prayed for death. But Kira eventually found strength in her soul, and her beliefs. If she was going to get through to Devina she had to connect with her. Kira walked into the other room and went over to the bed. Devina was stretched out on the bed, on her side, her back to Kira. Kira sat down on the bed.

"Devina," Kira said to the sobbing teenage girl, "I am not some visitor from another world, nor am I here to tell you how to live your life. I just want you to know that, just like you, I was beaten, raped and saw my father murdered before my eyes when I a young girl. I would often pray for death, just as you did."

Devina rolled over slightly and looked at Kira.

"Why didn't you just kill yourself," Devina asked pointedly.

Kira smiled.

"I tried," Kira said, as her own tears fell, "but I was stopped by Jantha."

Jantha was the woman who ran the Shajat Orphanage, and had introduced Kira to Devina on Bajor.

"She told me," Kira continued, "that she too had thought about," Kira paused, "killing herself and her younger sister; but she didn't; and why? Because giving up and letting those monsters win, and letting them abuse generations of Bajoran children to come, wasn't an option."

Again, Kira saw the anger in Devina's eyes dim…if for but a second.

There was nothing but silence for about five minutes, and then Kira stood up and slowly left the room; knowing that Devina had listened. If anything, listening was a start.

**Next time; Devina goes to school…**


End file.
